The term “program content” as used herein refers to the material that attracts an audience to a particular broadcast station. For example, a television audience will tune in to a particular station in order to watch a certain television program. In the context of radio, program content refers to songs, dialog, such as in the case of “talk” radio, or comedy segments that are played on a radio station.
The terms “advertising content” and “commercial content” which are used interchangeably herein, refer to advertisements (also known as commercials) that are interspersed within the program content, e.g., advertisements that are broadcast between songs in radio program content.
The term “broadcast signal” refers to a signal that contains program content and advertising content.
The “broadcast” of a broadcast signal can be over the airwaves, cable, satellite or any other signal transmission medium. It can also include the time-delayed playback of a broadcast program that was recorded. An “audience” for a broadcast signal is constituted of the persons who perceive it, such as a listener to a radio program.
The broadcast signal is “performed” by any reproduction equipment which results in some form that is perceivable to human beings, namely an audio and/or video signal. The “reproduction equipment” is any and all types of units to convert a broadcast signal into human perceptible form, such as a radio or television tuner and associated components.
The audience can be described as being “tuned” to a specific broadcast signal source, such as a radio broadcast station. The word “tuned” is applied herein to all situations in which a person chooses to be an audience member of program content broadcast by that specific broadcast signal source, such as by twisting a dial or operating a remote control device of a tuner, for example, in order to set that tuner so that it can receive and play the broadcast signal.
The price charged by a broadcaster for broadcasting an advertisement depends on a number of factors. For example, the price can depend on when an advertisement is aired (“aired” is used interchangeably herein with “broadcast”). As an example, a radio advertisement aired during prime commuting times, e.g. “rush hour”, will cost more than an advertisement broadcast late at night or at other times which typically have fewer listeners. Also, in many instances an advertiser will pay a radio station to have a specific advertisement aired a number of times per day. For example, an advertiser may contract with a radio station for an advertisement to air three times per day on consecutive days of a week, with the advertisements scheduled for broadcast once during the morning rush hour, once during the evening rush hour, and a third time during the afternoon.
Because advertising rates are dependent on the advertisement broadcast times and the frequency of broadcast (i.e. number of times the advertisement is broadcast), advertisers depend on monitoring data to confirm that the advertisements were in fact aired according to the contracted terms made by agreement with the broadcaster. For obvious reasons, advertisers desire independent, third-party confirmation of such information and do not want to rely on broadcasters to provide it.
When monitoring television programming for advertisements, an identification code, such as a “water mark” which is undetectable by a viewer, is oftentimes embedded in each advertisement included in the advertising content. Detection devices are provided by monitoring services to those audience members who choose to be participants in this effort. The devices are positioned proximate to, or in communication with, the televisions and detect the identification codes from the advertising content when an advertisement is aired. The detected code data is then transmitted or otherwise conveyed to an independent monitoring service. Such a system is more fully disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/391,907, 10/080,949 and 10/779,506, the content of all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
In radio, broadcast signals can also include identification codes for some or all of the advertisements contained in the broadcast signal, along with identification codes which identify the radio station. Thus, a monitoring device can be used to detect codes from a radio broadcast signal which identify an advertisement as well as the station that is playing the advertisement.
Unlike television program content which is predominantly viewed in the home, the vast majority of radio listening occurs outside of the home such as in automobiles and in places of employment. As a result, more meaningful monitoring of radio program content to obtain information of advertising broadcast time, station identification and frequency of advertisements in the advertising content is accomplished through the use of portable monitoring devices which can be carried by participants as they move, for example, among the home, the car, and the place of employment. Such devices may be, for example, a data capture device such as a memory stick, smartcard or other portable type of memory unit. The participant can removably connect such a data capture device to a docking station, for example, connected to a car radio and/or an office radio, so that the device will capture identification codes from the broadcast signal. Once a preset amount of data is captured or a preset time of day is reached, the data on the capture device will be transmitted to a monitoring service for processing. Such a monitoring system depends on cooperation of the monitoring participants to obtain accurate and timely capture and uploading of the needed data to monitor the broadcasting of particular advertisements which are of interest.
In order to stimulate monitoring cooperation by monitoring participants, compensation is typically provided. The compensation can be in various forms such as a monetary payment depending on the length of time of participation, e.g., a certain amount of money per day, etc., or giving specific goods and/or services, or discounts for the purchase of such goods or services. When a reward is offered to a person in exchange for some action by that person, the person's level of interest in obtaining the reward is proportional to the amount of time between the action and getting the reward. The highest level of interest is achieved when the reward is given promptly after the action. Such an “immediate” reward may include printed coupons as discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/080,949 and 10/391,907.
Although such rewards have been found to be effective in achieving the desired results, it is thought that still greater cooperation would be obtained if a different type of reward were to be offered to participants for the effort involved in the transport, manipulation of capturing devices used in connection with monitoring advertising content in radio programming, and for the uploading of the captured data to a remote data processing center in a timely manner.